Imran Tahir helps South Africa squeeze past Netherlands

South Africa managed to pull things back as they beat Netherlands by a narrow margin of six runs. Chasing 146, Netherlands came out all guns blazing and in power play scored 63 runs for the loss of opener Michael Swart (8).

Stephen Myburgh looked impressive once again as he scored his third T20I fifty. He brought up his half century off just 23 balls hitting eight 4s and two 6s before being dismissed by JP Duminy. His dismissal opened the gates for South Africa as Netherlands middle order fell apart after a solid start. (Check out the match action in pics)

Netherlands were in sight of a victory at 80/1 but lost nine wickets for just 59 runs. An expedient bowling by spinner Imran Tahir left Dutch batting in shambles. Tahir picked four important wickets in his four overs and helped South Africa to put brakes on Netherlands.

Dutch batsmen have only themselves to blame on as they were almost in control of the required run rate but wild shots by batsmen brought their downfall. Apart from Stephen Myburgh no other batsmen troubled South African bowlers. Wesley Barresi (14), Peter Borren (13) and Tom Cooper (16) all got starts but failed to capitalise. Rest of the batsmen played unresponsively and could not chase down a target which was achievable.

Dale Steyn too played his part as he picked two wickets for 19 runs. JP Duminy, Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Beuran Hendricks picked one wicket each but Tsotsobe was expensive of them all giving away 46 runs from his four overs.

Victory here means that South Africa is well in contention for semi-final berth and for Netherlands things look bleak.

Earlier Netherlands won the toss and elected to bowl first. Ahsan Malik picked the first five wicket haul of this World T20 as he left South Africa batsmen in tatters. South African batsmen looked to up the ante but in doing so they lost quick wickets after they were 84/2 at one stage. Hashim Amla top scored for Proteas with 43. South Africa lost their last seven wickets for just 61 runs and posted only 145/9 in their 20 overs.